Almond Milk Review: Rude Health vs Alpro vs Almond Breeze

A couple of weeks back, I asked you which dairy milk alternative you wanted to see reviews and comparisons for. The answer was a resounding “almond milk, please!”, so I spent the entire weekend drinking my body weight in milk to provide you with everything you need to know on the top three brands. You’re welcome.

Each brand has been scored out of ten in three categories: In Coffee, Taste, and Consistency (consistency here meaning thickness in comparison to dairy milk). So without further ado..

Alpro

7/10 – After you pour it in, there’s a little bit of visible separation that’s slightly unappealing, but with a second stir it settles down and comes together again, so that’s not a big deal. It’s thick enough to still taste and look like a standard milky coffee (so it’s good for if you’re trying to trick someone in to swapping to almond milk, for whatever wily reason you may be doing that).

Almond Breeze

5/10 – There’s no separation at all, but I think this is more down to its weakness. It looks like a black coffee, and pretty much tastes like a black coffee. If I tasted it blind I’d assume I was drinking black coffee.

Rude Health

9/10 – The best in coffee by far. Despite being the thinnest of all of them, Rude Health have somehow managed to achieve exactly what I’m looking for in a white coffee. You can taste the almond-iness in a good way, there’s no separation and it goes down a treat. Good shout, Rude Health.

Alpro

7/10 – It’s a little too sweet for me. Obviously, this is because I bought the sweetened carton, but they didn’t have unsweetened at Sainsbury’s so blame them for this slightly unfair test. You can taste the almond flavour but that’s definitely overpowered by the added sweeteners. I should also mention here that I’m currently cutting my sugar intake, so I’m a little more sensitive to the taste..

Almond Breeze

6/10 – Much like Alpro, the sweetness level is not my cup of tea. Again you can kind of taste the almond, but it’s actually less present in Almond Breeze than it was in Alpro. Definitely bottom of the pile as far as I’m concerned when it comes to taste.

Rude Health

10/10 – The perfect 10. To cut a long story short, it tastes like almonds that have been made in to milk. Just as almond milk should.

Alpro

9/10 – The cream of the crop in creaminess. This is the closest of all three to reach the satisfyingly thick consistency of dairy milk. It’s definitely glug-able.

Almond Breeze

4/10 – Very, very thin. This is presumably why it didn’t stand up will in the coffee category.

Rude Health

5/10 – It’s thin, if I were to compare it to it’s dairy cousin I’d say it’d match up to 1% slimmers milk by the skin of its teeth. But this is by no means a bad thing, it still makes a cracking coffee and it tastes wonderful.

After lots of sipping, careful consideration and more pee breaks than I would care to mention, Rude Health gets the gold star. On top of coming up trumps in the overall score, Rude Health almond milk has only a handful of ingredients, all completely recognisable and listed on the side in big old letters.

Well done Rude Health. But, before I go, I must give Alpro a little extra credit. For they have, wait for it, chocolate almond milk. I urge you to try it, I can’t get enough.

Interesting! I agree about Rude Health, although I stopped buying almond milk a few months ago and now do it myself, but the “cheater’s way”: I add water and almond butter in my blender, blend, and bam! Almond milk, without the fuss of making it with whole amonds, without the nasty ingredients they add in the supermarket versions, and without the packaging. 🙂

I find this very practical too in the sense that, whenever I need milk for a recipe, I make it on the spot and no longer have to dash to the shops (I buy my almond butter in bulk, so I always have some in my cupboard!).

Ahh that’s really bloody interesting that! I have like a phobia of using my blender cause it’s an attachment of the food processor and I just cannot be bothered to get it out and plug it in. Laziest girl ever.